Daily Journal 1/16/26

Productive first day back at the office yesterday. The first draft of the AuthorCon VI programming schedule is finished. Sonora Taylor is now being my second eyes on it. Once she’s done proofreading, I’ll revise into a second draft and post it. Folks will then have a week to chime in (including anyone who missed the original deadline).

Chris and I signed the contract for OPERATION LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK, which is the codename I’ve given to our next anthology project. You may remember that THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT: NEW TALES OF STEPHEN KING’S THE STAND had a codename of OPERATION WALKABOUT. The codenames exist so that I can talk about things I’m working on even when I’m not allowed to talk about them. It’s a trick I swiped many years ago from writer Warren Ellis. For example, Chris and I were working on THE STAND book for two years before the public ever found out what it actually was. And we weren’t allowed to tell the public about it during that time. But I’m someone who, for 30 years now, has always given his audience work updates. So, in order not to violate anything, on days when we were working on the anthology, I’d say “Worked on OPERATION WALKABOUT today.”

OPERATION LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK is the new codename for the new anthology, and yes, much like there was a clue for THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT: NEW TALES OF STEPHEN KING’S THE STAND in the codename OPERATION WALKABOUT (i.e. The Walking Dude), there is a clue in the codename OPERATION LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK. I look forward to your guesses as to what it might be.

Speaking of THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT: NEW TALES OF STEPHEN KING’S THE STAND, I recieved the Haunted Minds Book Club award for Best Anthology 2025 in yesterday’s mail, and this statue looks so frigging cool.

I put it in front of the anthology for the purposes of taking the picture, but now I’ll move it over to the awards shelf.

Today’s Goals: Work on FALLING ANGELS: THE LABYRINTH Book 4 and record a new episode of KEENEVERSATIONS.

Have a great day!